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Trump Looking For Loyalist To Serve As Attorney General; Republicans Retake The Senate, Control Of House Unclear; Sources: Trump Could Announce Key Staff Picks Within Days; Trump Says His Motto Will Be: "Promises Made, Promises Kept"; Trump Promises Mass Deportations, Strict New Border Rules; Biden: "You Can't Love Your Country Only When You Win"; Biden: U.S. Election System "Honest, It Is Fair, It Is Transparent"; Democrats Point Fingers As They Reckon With Trump's Win. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 07, 2024 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, the dawn of a new era. Former President Trump is now president elect Trump, and he's headed back to the White House with a mandate to carry out an expansive agenda, one well beyond the economic issues that swayed many Americans to vote GOP. We have new reporting on who may be going with him and what they're planning for day one.

Plus, you can't love your country only when you win. President Biden just restated that message to the nation in the White House after Donald Trump's resounding victory over his own vice president. And the blame game. Democrats are in deep despair, and they begin their long and arduous journey of examining how their coalition crumbled.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start with the seismic shift coming to Washington. In 74 days, Donald Trump will retake the reins of this country with a Republican controlled Senate and potentially entire GOP legislative branch, at least run by the GOP. First, the question is, what is the Trump team going to do when it comes to who they're going to hire?

And we're talking about 4000 government positions. Right now, the president elect is clearly focused on his top roles in the new administration. Sources say, those could be announced in a matter of days. And one of the top qualifications needed for those jobs is classic for Donald Trump loyalty.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is in West Palm Beach, where she's been working all of her sources in Trump world. Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Dana. I mean, one of the things we're keeping close eye on is who is going to be that attorney general. And obviously, we want to know who is going to be across the cabinet. But there is a particular focus on attorney general when it comes to Donald Trump, because of a lot of the promises that the former president has made.

One of which, being that they don't want to have a sort of separation between the Department of Justice and the executive branch as a whole. Donald Trump wants to have a full control over the Department of Justice, something that we have been saying for the last year would be part of his plan once he gets to office. And that means having an attorney general who is incredibly loyal to the former president.

Also, let's talk about those federal cases. He's going to want to have them immediately dismissed. He's also said he wants to make sure that Jack Smith can be fired as early as day one. Thus, he's going to need a strong attorney general who's going to enact what Donald Trump wants on day one.

So, here's some of the names that are being floated. I want to be very clear, there's a lot of names being floated. Right now, Donald Trump is having a lot of conversations. The transition team is having a lot of conversations. But some of the names we've heard, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Matt Whitaker, who served as the acting A.G. after he fired Jeff Sessions. Mike Lee, the Senator from Utah. There's John Ratcliffe, who served as the former Director of National Intelligence.

It's also two names that we don't have on our list, Mike Davis and Mark Paoletta. These are both two conservative attorneys who have done a lot for Donald Trump in the last several years. Particularly, Mike Davis, if you look at him, he has been on television nonstop, really pushing a lot of Donald Trump's legal ideas, going up around his legal issue and defending the former president. We know that being on television is something that Donald Trump monitors and monitors very closely.

Now, of course, the other key position to keep in mind here is chief of staff. Who is going to be Donald Trump's number two? Now, right now, we are told that that front runner is Susie Wiles, who helped run Donald Trump's campaign and really helmed his win, getting him back into the White House. He feels comfortable around her. He feels as though she is somebody who protects him and is loyal to him.

And I just a reminder of something that you just said. When Donald Trump left Washington in 2021, he left in disgrace. It was after January 6. It was after he had lost the election. It was after he had lied about election -- the election, and fraud that we had seen and not actually seen, but that he had said that we had seen. And most Republicans distanced themselves from the former president.

Susie Wiles was somebody who was by his side. I saw him by -- I saw her by his side when he announced in 2022. When he sat through the election results in 2022. She has been with him every step of the way, regardless of how we know he can be. And we know from reporting that we've done. How he has talked to her in the past, and the kind of contentious relationship. She really tried to keep him in line to get him back into the White House.

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So, I am told that she is the front runner for that job. There's obviously a few other people in consideration, but it's going to be interesting to see if she wants it and how this actually plays out.

BASH: Kristen, thank you so much for your reporting today and throughout this whole campaign. And I'm sure we'll be thanking you every day for what we're about to experience. Appreciate it.

Joining me now are some of the best reporters in the business, CNN's Manu Raju, Laura Barron-Lopez of PBS NewsHour, CNN's Jeff Zeleny and CNN's John King. So, here we are, first Inside Politics after the election.

I want to pick off -- pick up where Kristen left off, which is, I think we should also say that. Like, we're going to be trying to absorb the equivalent of water coming from a fire hose, pretty much every day. So maybe the best way to digest it all is to take it with bite sized pieces.

Let's start with John, where she talked about the attorney general, chief of staff also, but attorney general, because I don't think that there is a position in the future Trump cabinet that is more consequential for how he intends to very open about how he intends to use the government, use the Justice Department for his own. I wouldn't say benefit, but the separation right now that Joe Biden put in, which is the traditional way to do it, is going to be blown right open.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look. There are -- we should start with the assumption that there are few, if any, guardrails around the new Trump presidency. The Supreme Court has said, presidents have pretty much blanket immunity. The constitution doesn't say the attorney general has to be some distant, far away figure. That has just been an American norm. Donald Trump does not follow American norms.

The old saying in Washington used to be personnel as policy. A lot of people out there think Trump doesn't care about policy. I think that's a mistake. He doesn't care about the minutiae policy. He's not Bill Clinton. He's not going to be going looking for the semicolons in a document.

But we know he cares about immigration. We know he cares about certain issues that he's going to push. And we know that he learned from his first experience when he found people fighting back against him, what he calls the deep state or establishment Republicans, the Rex Tillerson, the Jim Mattis. Those people aren't coming to Washington.

Trump is bringing a team that he views, that you know, that are with him. That when he says, jump, they say, how high. So, his team is going to be his people this time, they learned that lesson. For better or worse, they learned that lesson.

The bigger question for me is, you know, he's going to have a Senate majority. How big, right? Is Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and the one or two other voices who might say, please sir, no. That's too much, sir. No. I suspect not.

I think one of the things -- yes, Trump's going to bring his people. The biggest thing to me is that the Republicans who used to stand up to him, are gone. Are gone. This is his stage now. This is his stage.

BASH: And just because you mentioned that. Let's just look at that in mind. I'll bring you in. Senate balance of power as of now, it's not done yet. Republicans have 52, Democrats 44. There are open seats, Dave McCormick -- or open races, I should say.

Dave McCormick, for example, in Pennsylvania holds a narrow lead over the incumbent Democrat Bob Casey. We don't know how that's going to play out. And then, of course, in the House, it's too early to know. Republicans have 209, Democrats have 191, but there hasn't been a call yet in 35 seats in the House of Representatives.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And I think that the likelihood in the Senate is probably a 53, 47 Senate. Least, that's what it's trending right now. McCormick seems likely to win that seat. We have not called that yet. In the House, it's trending to become a Republican led House. We've not called it yet because there are several seats in California that are outstanding.

But it is, once again, if the Republicans do hold the House, it's going to be a narrow majority. And one-party rule. Yes, you can get a lot done, but it's difficult to legislate in one-party rule. You have to be really coordinated to get things done. People have a different variety, different ideology within the House Republican Conference.

You have to worry about people in swing districts, swing states, people like Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins in the Senate, which is why that one additional seat that Dave McCormick could get a pad to the Senate Republican majority, could be hugely significant. If you lose, Collins and Murkowski and one other, you can still pass something with J. D. Vance breaking the tie. So, every vote so critical, but it's going to require a lot of coordination. That was which we did not see in the first two years -- four years of Trump.

BASH: Real quick. I want you to speak to what John said about -- it's not just the numbers, it's the who -- who fills those seats. Mitt Romney is going to be gone. There are a lot of Republicans when he first came into office who saw themselves as more traditional Republicans and maybe the guardrails of whatever it was that they were fighting for. Now most of those seats, not all, but most of those seats are with Trump, like Republicans.

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RAJU: Yeah. And Mitch McConnell, who is -- was a battle --

BASH: That's a great example Trump.

RAJU: -- Donald Trump after he left office, of course, was very critical of them. He's no longer the Republican leader. He'll be still a member of the Senate, but he's going to be replaced by people who are now trying to align themselves with Donald Trump. Get his support potentially in their bid for leadership. It is a much different makeup. In the House Republican Conference, pretty much all those people voted to impeach Donald Trump are gone. BASH: Let's go back to where we are right now, which is Donald Trump and Mar-a-Lago trying to figure out who's going to be in his cabinet or in the top positions in and around him in the administration. Listen to what his son Donald Trump Jr. said about the approach he's taking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP JR., DONALD TRUMP'S SON: I want to make sure now that we know who the real players are, the people who will actually deliver on the president's message, the people who don't think that they know better than the duly elected president of the United States. I want to make sure that those people are in his cabinet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That's exactly the point that John was making. Is that, because he has been here before, and he listened in a lot of the instances in the first go round, like Rex Tillerson. He didn't know Rex Tillerson. And somebody said, well, maybe he'll be good, or pick your person that he didn't really know that ain't going to happen this time.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: For sure, not. I mean, we all remember --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: More general.

ZELENY: We all remember the Trump transition initially, very well. He was coming from Trump Tower into the Oval Office, very different. Now, he knows exactly what this job is like. That's why it's history making, in a way. But it's not just he's returning to his old job. He's returning it with the wind at his back. The popular vote, likely majorities on Capitol Hill, but loyalty is something that he deeply remembers.

Jeff Sessions is one of his biggest regrets. Choosing Jeff Sessions -- Senator Sessions, who was first senator --

RAJU: Who is the loyal --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: He was.

ZELENY: Of course, he was. He was the first Republican senator to endorse him at the time. But I will -- we could see it play out in real time, his disappointment, his anger at Jeff Sessions. So that is sort of the starting point here. That is sort of the barometer for who he will put in some of these positions.

Look, but people also know that if you join the Trump cabinet, no guarantees how long that will last. I mean, there is a long list of people, but at this point there's a long list people who want to be in the cabinet, who want to serve right around him. So, this will be fascinating. But the biggest sort of dynamic here is that Trump knows much more about this job than he did four years ago or eight years ago, excuse me.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: Good. It's not just that Trump knows more. It's also the apparatus that has been built out in the lead up to this. So, Heritage Foundation has worked day and night basically since the first Trump administration, to train to figure out who would be loyal, to make sure that they have civil servants that they can put in there.

I mean, if Trump moves forward with one of his plans that he tried to execute at the end of the first administration, which was to make it so he could have more political appointees across the board. Then you're going to see the gutting of the civil service and him putting in more of his political appointees that are already waiting in the wings, because groups like Heritage Foundation have had them ready to go.

BASH: I want to stick with you for one second, because I want to drill down even more. Of course, one of the big reasons why he won again, is immigration. And he was very clear on what he wants to do on immigration, close the border, launch mass deportation operations, stop birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, ban sanctuary cities.

Let's start with the deportation, because that is one of the big, most immediate questions. His sort of guru on immigration is Stephen Miller. Look at what he said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When will the deportations begin?

STEPHEN MILLER, TRUMP ADVISER: As President Trump said, they begin on Inauguration Day, as soon as he takes the oath of office. And any caravan that's trying to get into the country now. They're going to be apprehended and sent home when Donald Trump comes into office. The invasion will end, the incident that he takes the oath of office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yeah. I don't think people have fully realized the undertaking that that requires, which is that, I mean, when you talk to border officials, they alone, you know, border patrol cannot execute something like that alone. Is he going to deputize national guard, as Stephen Miller has said that he would in the past to deploy them into potentially blue states, which Stephen Miller has said as well, to round up undocumented migrants.

Also, which undocumented migrants are they rounding up? Is it everyone? Are they focused on national security threats, which some have said that would be their top priority? Is that also undocumented migrants who have been here forever? There was a young girl at Harris's concession speech yesterday, a 22-year-old voter from North Carolina who said that she has a mixed status family. She has DACA recipients in her family, and she's terrified that they are going to be targeted when Trump comes in.

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BASH: John, you spent the entire year talking to undecided voters. Obviously, the economy was the driving force for a lot of these votes that ended up going to Trump. How much did they kind of understand and agree with and approve of the kind of thing that we're almost certainly going to see?

KING: I think you raised one of the giant challenges. A, for the American people and how they process this, and B, for the new president as he comes in. Because they think Trump's going to close the border, fix the border.

Do they really think Trump's going to round up? Is it 12 million people, is it 15 million people, is it 18 million people? And methodically bust them out or throw them across the border. Most No. Some say, yes. Some say do that and create a legal system and then invite them back in as long as they do the paperwork.

But I think one of the giant challenges here, is number one, I don't believe. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong. They know the Hill better. I don't think you're going to get the votes for legislation that says a mass deportation, right? You're not --

BASH: Does he need it? Can you do it by checking it out?

KING: Well, that -- then it comes down to executive order, and then you'll have Democratic governors fighting him. You'll have some Republican governor saying, sir, I don't think this is a good idea. And this will be a test when the farmers, the big businesspeople, the hospitality industry, the people who rely on these workers to keep the American.

Does Donald Trump want to disrupt the economy he inherits by doing this, because that's a huge risk, right? Biden's inflation hurt the Democrats. They just not lost an election because of COVID disruption and then economic anxiety. Donald Trump is going to come in. The economy is actually improving. He's lucky. He inherited a great economy for Barack Obama.

BASH: He's like Barack Obama.

KING: He's inheriting an improving economy now. But does he want to disrupt that? Because if you want to do that, think about mass deportations and what it would do to the American economy. He believes he -- so, that's my question. Does he mean it? Does he just want to -- is it, you know, he talks big sometimes. Biden always says, it's not hyperbole folks. There's a lot of hyperbole when it comes to Trump. We think we're about to find out.

BASH: Stephen Miller certainly means it. So, we'll see. Don't go anywhere, because we all know that the finger pointing is happening on the Democratic side of the aisle. Some Democrats are searching for a scapegoat. Others say, just suck it up. All are wondering what role they will play in this new GOP controlled Washington. We'll talk about that next.

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BASH: You can't love your country only when you win. That was President Biden's message today, with 74 days left in office before handing the reins back over to the person who was there beforehand.

CNN senior White House correspondent MJ Lee has more on Joe Biden's remarks. MJ, it was interesting to note, first of all that he was very direct about saying that he called Donald Trump and that he wishes him well. And he tried to strike a very hopeful tone. You have new reporting on some anger, though, going on behind the scenes, inside the White House and more broadly in the party.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Dana. First of all, hopeful tone, and also, clearly the president trying to console the millions of Americans that he said, he understands is feeling, angry and frustrated. We know that people are feeling even despondent about the idea of Donald Trump coming back to the White House for another four years.

He said, you're hurting. I hear you and I see you. But he very quickly pivoted to the reality that in a democracy like this, when there is an election, those feelings, even if they are valid, do not change the results of the election. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Remember, a defeat does not mean we are defeated. We lost this battle. The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up. That's the story of America for over 240 years and counting. It's a story for all of us, not just some of us. The American experiment endures. We're going to be OK, but we need to stay engaged. We need to keep going. And above all, we need to keep the faith.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And just across the Democratic Party, Dana, there is sadness, there is despair, there is shock that not only that the vice president lost, but how decisively Donald Trump won reelection. And I will tell you, among the Biden loyalists, those who are, you know, staunch supporters of the president, there is real sensitivity right now to the fact that the president is getting a lot of the blame from inside the Democratic Party for what happened this week.

The idea being that, had he -- you know, said he was not going to seek another second term. Had he sort of stuck to the pledge that he initially made to be a transition president and a bridge president for the future dem leaders. That the party would not have found itself in this position, that they would have gone through a Democratic primary process. Maybe Kamala Harris would have emerged at the top, and maybe not. And there is anger at the advisers around him too for not dealing with and tolerating any suggestion over the years that the president step aside.

This is what a senior Harris campaign official told me. They said the lack of a competitive process for a replacement, that he didn't allow for that to happen. People are still angry about the shunning that they took for speaking out earlier about him. So, the soul-searching process, Dana, within the Democratic Party is clearly going to be a very, very long process.

BASH: Sure is. Thank you so much for that, MJ. And back here, I also just want to take a moment to note another part of President Biden's speech, where he very clearly and directly reminded people that the electoral process worked.

That he thanked election workers, he thanked people who were involved in making sure that that Democratic experiment worked, and unsaid, but very clear in his remarks was, we're accepting it. And by the way, the sound of silence on any questions of fraud or wrongdoing is deafening from Donald Trump after they won.

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ZELENY: It's amazing how that went away. What time was it, John? Shortly before the polls in Philadelphia closed, I think. Right before that, on election night, on Truth Social Donald Trump was complaining. We're seeing issues in Philadelphia.

RAJU: He said, cheating pacific right.

BASH: Yeah.

ZELENY: Right. So, no voter fraud. So, I think that was good that President Biden mentioned that. It would be normal, but it's obviously -- it is important to that he said that.

BASH: But I want to turn back. I just wanted to note that. I want to turn back to the Democratic Party. And look, you've covered Democrats for a long time. You've covered the bad, the good and the ugly. What are you hearing from your sources?

ZELENY: It's ugly. I mean, there's no doubt about that. This is the Democratic equivalent of in 2012 after Barack Obama was reelected when Democrat -- I mean, at that time, when Republicans said there has to be an autopsy. What happened here? There was a full-on collapse.

Look, President Biden said a lot of things in the Rose Garden. We'll hear from him more. What he didn't say was his own role in this. As MJ said, he talked about being a bridge. Had he been that bridge and there had been a primary. We don't know if Vice President Harris would have won the nomination.

So, she won the short-term advantage of having a short primary. But in the long term, that was not good for her because voters didn't know her or feel a connection, and she didn't carve out her own identity.

But look, Democrats will have a long time to think about this because they are in the wilderness now. And this does not last forever. I mean, of course, but there could be leaders out there who emerge, who we don't even think of now.

But at the moment, look to the governors. Wes Moore from Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer, of course, Josh Shapiro. I would probably add a Governor Pritzker in Illinois to that. Some of those people will come up with ideas, Gavin Newsom, of course, for sure.

But look, the reality here is there are mechanical issues that led to this, but message issues looked to like states like the New Jersey, for example. Why did Trump do so much better there? It wasn't just swing state. This is a messaging probably bigger than the campaign --

BASH: Well, tonight -- because you brought up governors. I want to play what governor elect of North Carolina Josh Stein said this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH STEIN, (D) NORTH CAROLINA GOV.-ELECT: Whether you're Latino, African American, white, Asian, it doesn't matter. Everybody wants good schools. Everybody wants an economy where they have a fair shot at making it. Everybody wants safe neighborhoods. Everybody wants their personal freedoms respected.

And if you talk about those issues in a way that appeals to all people, and you show that you can deliver on them, and that you have a track record of getting things done. I believe the voters will reward us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: John, you and I had a little bit of a debate this morning. I was making the argument that it's not necessarily about Kamala Harris, not necessarily about Joe Biden. There is a fundamentally deeply rooted issue with Democrats not figuring out a way to connect. And, in fact, disconnecting with the very people that fueled their coalition for so long.

KING: Right. So, I'm going to hold up the map here, and we can take it in a big picture, I think, somewhere else too. But you look at all this red, and a lot of it's in middle America and southeast America. So, you just talked to, that was the candidate who just won a governor race here. It's red in the presidential race.

Long time ago and early in my campaigns, after Walter Mondale lost 49 states and Michael Dukakis lost 40 states. A guy named Bill Clinton from Arkansas stood up and said, the Democrats, we need to change the way we do things. I think it's that kind of a moment for the Democratic Party.

So, to Jeff's point, you know, you see the blue wall has gone red again. There are Democratic governors in all of those states. So, they have managed to win in a difficult environment. They have managed to not lose as many working-class voters --

BASH: Which is why you disagree with the --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: So, I would say, this is very complicated. It's very complicated. I will tell you from 15 months on the road. I think the first building block of the Democratic autopsy has to be the invisible president. And I'm sorry, a great respect for Joe Biden, great respect for anyone who holds the office. He was invisible because he cannot travel. All of his trips were to Pennsylvania. He was not out in America --

BASH: Even when he was candidate.

KING: When he was a president. In the first even way before we got to the primary process, Donald Trump was running for president.

BASH: It was COVID too.

KING: COVID too. The MAGA -- but they find a way to communicate. One of my early trips was in Milwaukee, and we had 70-year-old black women saying, I don't think it matters. I may not vote. Where's the president? Where's the president?

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Well, Harris was in, and Harris was bottled up. Then the Biden administration thought they were -- he was going to be able to be the candidate. But early on, he just was not out there way before. Way before we were thinking about the election. Explaining, like what -- like he did today. I know inflation sucks.

Look around the world. We're doing better than everybody else. What can I do to help you? That was Joe Biden's calling card. The empathetic guy, the kid from Scranton. And he was not visible in America. Yes, some of it's COVID, but some of it clearly was he didn't -- they didn't trust him out on the road, moving around.

And so, what happens when that happens, right? Quickly. You come in here, Erie, Pennsylvania, right? These are the counties in Pennsylvania that voted twice for Barack Obama, then for Donald Trump, and then for Joe Biden, and they went back to Donald Trump. That's Erie County and Northampton County.

I can go through Michigan and go through Wisconsin, the swing counties, the 50-50 counties, Donald Trump won most of them. And what's -- what do they have in common, blue-collar Americans who, yes, care about democracy. But they also want to take their kids to Disney World, and they can't afford it. And they also are driving a car that's a little shaky.

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